NEW YORK: Jonathan Demme, the eclectic movie director whose work ranged from thrillers like The Silence of the Lambs to documentaries on leading musicians, died of cancer in New York on Wednesday.

Demme, 73, who also directed the ground-breaking 1993 AIDS movie, Philadelphia, was suffering from esophageal cancer, publicist Annalee Paulo said in a statement. “Jonathan passed away early this morning in his Manhattan apartment, surrounded by his wife, Joanne Howard, and three children. He died from complications from esophageal cancer,” Paulo said.

New York-born Demme won a directing Oscar for the 1991 thriller, The Silence of the Lambs, which also won Oscars for best picture and for its stars Anthony Hopkins and Jodie Foster. Demme’s work was wide ranging, including comedy and thrillers to bold fare like Philadelphia, one of the first mainstream Hollywood movies to tackle the AIDS crisis. The movie brought an Oscar for Tom Hanks. He also directed concert and music documentaries for the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Kenny Chesney and Neil Young, the Talking Heads, and more recently, Justin Timberlake + the Tennessee Kids.

The director’s other notable films include the 2008 independent drama, Rachel Getting Married, The Manchurian Candidate (2004), 1988 comedy Married to the Mob and the 1998 adaptation of Toni Morrison’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Beloved.

Published in Dawn, April 27th, 2017